Magic the Gathering: Monogreen Control

Updated on July 12, 2011

Mwonvuli Acid Moss

"And the moss consumed the land, and saw that it was good." (mwonvuli 26:7)

The Magic the Gathering card set has reached 10000+ and even the most unlikely of decks, monogreen control, is possible. There is a perverse joy in bringing out a deck no one expects to ever see. For some in magic the gathering: deck ideas are a great part of magic's charm. So here I submit a mtg deck type that you'll never see elsewhere: monogreen control. "Green" and "control" are practically opposites, but green control can be done. Here are some of the perils of this mtg deck idea:

Mtg: Problems with Monocolor Decks

Despite 10000+ cards the designers at Wizards of the Coast have been guided by general themes that keep colors remarkably consistent. Playing with only one color allows you the full range of a color's strength but at the cost that color's glaring problems. Monoblack can get completely derailed by a strong artifact or enchantment for example. However, no color has a bigger blindspot than green. Green as a whole is well equiped to deal with everything: spells, artifacts, enchantments, lands... but not creatures. Love it or hate it, most decks win by attacking their opponents with creatures (and those that don't pack lots of creature removal).

Mtg: the Green Gamble

The green gamble is that your creatures are just going to be bigger and faster than your opponent's. This gamble makes sense for weenie, beatdown, and tempo decks. However, a control deck does not set out to win the creature contest. A control deck seeks to shut down the other player's deck. There is great peril in this strategy (your opponent finds a way to break through your controls) but also great rewards (once a deck is shut down it's powerless, regardless of design). So what controls does green have? Land destruction. The justification for giving green land destruction is anyone's guess, but it is a control mechanism: if your opponents don't have land, they don't have mana. If they don't have mana, they can't play spells--even creatures.

Mtg: Land Destruction with Honor

Land destruction is not
really a viable option in any tournament format. Tournaments are
intended to be competitive--you win however you can. However, just for
fun games (casual) require some degree of fun. I've heard land
destruction called "the most hated deck type". Partly this is because in
land destruction's peak form, your opponent will have no land and a
hand with seven cards he cannot cast.

But this is not the way
land destruction has to turn out. I don't find the prospect of killing
my opponent with a 1/1 elf while he or she can't do anything. So I
simply tell my opponent's to play decks with low mana requirements.
Furthermore, I'm generous with mulligans. What frustrates players when
faced with land destruction decks is helplessness. But if you
tell your opponents to play decks that can withstand land destruction
you can have tense and interesting games. Plus (and you didn't hear this
from me) land destruction decks can be vicious against "unbeatable"
decks full of expensive rares. Someone I knew was play testing a zombie
deck via proxied cards, bragging about how he beat all 19 of his
fiancee's decks. His deck fell apart because he
never got a fourth land.

New Planechse Sets

Mtg: Land Destruction Strategy

Playing the deck: when it
comes to playing land destruction there's a good rule of thumb: when
presented with multiple options, the right play is usually to cast a
land destruction spell. Imperious Perfect (that cranks out elf tokens),
Ankh of Mishra (that does two damage when a player plays a land), and
Dirtcowl Wurm (that gets a +1/+1 counter when an opponent plays a land)
might be competing against your land destruction, but you should
probably play your land destruction. The land destruction in this deck
is point destruction, meaning one spell kills one land. This means
you're going to run out of land destruction spells well before your
opponent runs out of lands. Let's just look at the math.

Magic
players generally play 24 lands in 60 card decks. This deck build calls
for 14 land destruction spells. A typical first nine cards would have
3-4 lands and 2-4 land destruction spells. For the sake of argument,
let's say you're going second, and that your opening hand you get are 3
forests, 3 land destruction spells, and a Llanowar Elf and you draw into
an Imperious Perfect. (Your next card is a land destruction card, the
last you'll see for a number of turns) Now you can play an elf and
second turn you can get out Imperious Perfect. Let's just imagine that
your opponent has an Oblivion Ring in his hand and over the course of
play will have access to five lands (three in hand, drawing into two
more during your land destruction phase). Your opponent is monowhite and
will continue playing plains until there are no more left (5). It is
the second turn and you have a perfectly healthy elf. You have a choice
between Imperious or Winter's Grasp. You choose Imperious. Then, on his
third turn, he removes Imperious from the game. Now you start your land
destruction. You destroy his third land. Next turn he plays another
plains, which you destroy. Then the next turn he plays another land, the
last that player will see in a long time. Then you destroy it. And next
turn his fourth plains is gone. Now you're essentially top decking.
Your opponent is waiting for a land and you're hoping your next land
destruction spell will come first. In this scenario your opponent had
access to three mana for three turns, two mana for one turn, and then
one mana for most of the game. In the scenario where you pick Winter's
Grasp, Your opponent has access to 2 mana for four turns and one mana
the rest of the game. When you do play Imperious Perfect, he doesn't
have the mana to remove it, and your tokens quickly accumulate into
death.

This is an oversimplified example, but it demonstrates
what you must know about land destruction via point removal: it takes a
lot of commitment to stop a player by destroying their lands one at a
time. This commitment does not leave much room for answering threats in
the mean time. The faster and harder you hit someone's lands the better.
If you can get through the land destruction phase you can expect to
have 4-6 mana while your opponent has 2-4 and green more than any other
color loves those odds. . .

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